


leaves of grass (a fragment)

by lyryk (s_k)



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, M/M, Pre-Series, fragment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-04
Updated: 2010-02-04
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2025231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/pseuds/lyryk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: A memory that will never die.</p><p>Set about thirteen years before the events of CotBP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	leaves of grass (a fragment)

Leaves of grass, like pages in a book, contain memories that are green, flourishing, but always in danger of drying up, turning brown, going brittle, breaking. The greenest memory of all in my mind is that of an almost-warm summer day in England, during my eighteenth year.

In most respects, it had been a year like any other before it, even if its end was to be unusual in more than one way. Some of the unusualness of that particular year was expected. I was to complete eighteen years of age just before the summer began, and to complete my first year at university, where I was studying in accordance with my parents’ wishes. I was not to know that I would never finish that course, but enter a profession I had never imagined I would find myself in.

But more than anything else—more than my career, my education, my coming of age—more than all of these things, when I thought back to that summer over the next thirteen years, it was the last three weeks before the end of term that I remembered the most. During those three weeks, it seemed as if my life had put itself on hold while something happened; it seemed as if I were a traveller who had stopped at a strange town, and then decided to move on in a completely different direction from the one I had intended to take.

There were five of us that year who were fast friends, not because we were travelling a common path; the only thing we shared was that we were all of a certain rebellious bent of mind. There was Jack Marlowe, daringly anti-establishment and the self-proclaimed spokesperson of our clique; Edward Lane, forever drowning in verse and his largely unrequited love for Jack Marlowe; Sophie Brook, who had a passion for horse-riding, a magical way with animals, and a fierce desire for education, even though she could not officially enrol; Samuel ‘Blade’ Brook, Sophie’s brother, known more for his prowess in fencing than for his way with words; and there was I, the youngest of the group, for the others had already crossed their eighteenth birthdays. The path we had chosen was a dangerous one, for we had already taken, before the end of our first year at college, to calling ourselves the University Wits; anyone familiar with the name would have known that the original University Wits had professed themselves to be atheists and homosexuals. We cared not, for we were young and invincible, and had no inkling of the tragedy that we were willingly courting.

Looking back, I am still uncertain if John Shepherd’s arrival precipitated our change in fortunes, or if it protected some of us, most notably me, from further ruin. He arrived at the college three weeks before the end of term, a transfer student from elsewhere. My first memory of him is of a brazen, slender young man several inches shorter than I who strolled into an exclusive reading group managed by the Dean himself and threw himself carelessly into an empty chair, a lit pipe dangling from one hand as he flipped open his book over his knee without having to ask which page we were at. By the time the discussion of the day was halfway through, it was abundantly clear that not only had he done the reading ahead of time, but that he was extremely intelligent and opinionated.

It was nearing the end of term and interesting topics of conversation being rare, we often discussed John Shepherd in his absence. Jack Marlowe was quick to dismiss him as a dabbler, but I was secretly more inclined to agree with Sophie’s opinion that Shepherd was a true iconoclast. I could not, however, define with absolute certainty what I thought of the newcomer. Like the others in the group, I had been drawn to Marlowe’s opinions because of his charisma and bravado; now, however, I found my boyish fascination with him superseded by genuine intrigue about someone else.

The first time I challenged Marlowe openly about any issue was an occasion when we were all sprawled in Lane’s room late one evening, the air thick with lazy, alcohol-induced debate. Sophie was there as well, perched on the edge of Lane’s desk with a bottle of gin cradled in her lap; she and Samuel were the children of the Dean and she was therefore often allowed unofficial entry into certain classes, but even the most liberal of our professors would have balked at the knowledge that she was accustomed to spending most of her evenings in one or other of our rooms. Despite the obvious conclusions that may have arisen from her practices, she was not, to the best of my knowledge, sexually involved with anyone in the group; it was Edward Lane and Jack Marlowe who constituted our resident pairing. Even if Marlowe were mostly disinclined to acknowledge Lane’s affections before the rest of us, we were all too aware that they spent most nights together in either of their rooms.

On the night of my dispute with Marlowe, I found my patience sorely tested by him and failed, for the first time, to maintain a façade of calm in the face of his overt, if brilliant, arrogance. Ever since John Shepherd’s arrival, the tension had been mounting between Marlowe and me; looking back, I can finally acknowledge that it was Marlowe who had first surmised that I was attracted to Shepherd, even before I had known it myself. Although I still do not fully comprehend what it was that irked Marlowe, I do not believe his annoyance was caused by sexual jealousy, but rather a tacit fear that the new arrival would dethrone him as ringleader.

Marlowe had been making snide, insidious remarks all week, and when he tossed yet another crude, unthinking aside at me that evening, I found my hands clenching into fists. ‘Is there no better form of amusement that your crass mind can come up with?’ I snapped, losing the composure that I had been holding on to for days.

‘Crass, am I?’ he laughed. ‘You don’t fool me. It’s about time you admitted that all you want to do is follow your cock into Shepherd’s trousers.’

‘Jack,’ Lane said warningly, but Marlowe was not to be daunted. Rather than remain in his vicinity and enter what would undoubtedly turn into an ugly fray, I turned around and left, slamming the door behind me even as he raised his voice and continued to hurl increasingly vulgar accusations at me.

*

Looking back, I wonder if it was utterly incongruous that I chose that night, when I was in the worst of tempers, to fall completely in love for the first time in my life. Perhaps it was an instinct in me, rather than deliberation, that led me to the music room. It was a place that had soothed me throughout my year in the college; even when it was silent and empty, its cathedral-like vastness and quiescence had the power to still torrential thoughts and make me feel, more than anything else, _safe_.

That night, the music room was not empty. Nor was it silent, but the melancholic softness of the melody being played with gentle elegance on the piano seemed to enhance rather than diminish the serenity of the place. Perhaps it was just enormously fortuitous that it was John Shepherd who was there that night, but I was wholly unsurprised to find him there, as if our meeting had been ordained by the stars.

I entered as noiselessly as possible, allowing him to see me, not wanting to encroach on his time without making him aware of my presence. He inclined his head slightly to acknowledge me, and did not stop playing. I sat down cross-legged on the carpeted floor in front of the raised piano loft, and watched as much as listened to him. Perhaps it was the alcohol I had imbibed that gave me the audacity to presume that I was not unwelcome there; indeed, I could have sworn that a slight smile graced his lips as he continued to play. It could not have been more than a few minutes before he inclined his head toward me, indicating that he wanted me to turn his sheet of music over so that he could continue uninterrupted, but in that brief time the music had already banished whatever disharmony had been plaguing my mind. It swirled around me as a mist and I breathed it in like air, letting the magic that he was creating cleanse my mind of every thought except that I was, for the moment, steeped in beauty of the rarest sort.

Upon his gesture, I moved behind him and leaned over his shoulder to read the music in the light from the candle bracket on the wall. He glanced up briefly at me as I turned the page, and in that instant I imagined that his dark eyes were alight with something more than just the flickering reflection of golden flames.


End file.
